Raising my kids, moment by moment,
is the hardest thing I have ever done.
because I know it matters.
because I want to do it right.
because I know I won't.
because I still must try.
And mostly because there is no way I can do it alone.
I made this blog as a place to gather the inspiration as well as somewhere to put the ridiculous amount of photos I take, trying desperately to see this crazy time in our lives for what it really is--soul stretching wonderfulness, I won't want to forget.

Monday, August 8, 2011

"Gulp" or more commonly known as Relief Society

I love Relief Society.
I love learning, discussing, expounding, sharing and partaking if the gospel with other "holy women".

Love drinking it in. Gulping it down.

That third hour of church can feel just like that. When your super thirsty on a hot day and you finally get your hands on some water and you just can't get it down fast enough.

The lesson was on Living Water.
And "my cup", my mind, my heart certainly left "runneth o'er".

I had so many thoughts as we sat drench in the Spirit. Living Water is such a perfect analogy.

I think it's significant that Christ originally gave it to a women, at a well. A women who daily had to go to, draw and carry the water for her family. In the link above, I found it interesting how one women wondered if the women came at mid day to escape ridicule from other women. If she felt misunderstood, judged, unworthy and lonely.

She had need.

And she needed more than physical water.
We all do.

As our Relief Society president gave the lesson she spoke of a severing from the world's darkness and hardness, how the mortality that pulls us can be escaped through Christ. We read form D&C 101:36

for in this world your joy is not full, but in me your joy is full.

Into my mind came an image of a cup. I thought how life in this fallen world takes from us, drains us of energy, of hope. The image became a puncture cup. Leaking. Loosing.

We pour into our cup. We seek. We read. We pray. We try to fill our cup, but it spills out through the sometimes necessary stresses, trials and disappointments of this life. Our very vessels can be cracked a broken.

We have times where we pour enough that the cup fills and we are overwhelmed with joy--looking at a newborn child, feeling connected to the Lord in moments of meditation and revelation, or sitting in a great Relief Society lesson-- "our cups runneth o'er"

And then the daily drain occurs and it's back to faithful filling.

It was mentioned that perhaps in our day of modren connivence that the metaphor of the life giving spring of water is perhaps lost on us. We think very little about turning on a tap to wash dishes, or filling a tub to bath.

Then I realized the correlation. We are in a time when our access to "Living Water" is almost as instant as turning on a tap.

Our scriptures, and words of living prophets once so scarce are now a mouse click a way. We can hold the entire standard works in our phones, listen to conference addresses instantly over the internet.

But then, if we lived in a house with running water and choose never to shower we would still be dirty. We could have all the fresh water in the world, but it would do us no good unless we chose to drink.

I know that Christ is the source of all we need. The well spring from which all blessings flow.

He has filled my parched spirit again and again. Whether dried out from the harshness of life or my own neglect, He flows in and willingly restores.

3
comments:

Very insightful. Thanks so much for sharing. As an aside - the house my family lives in does not always have water, and growing up it made life very difficult. I can remember going to a spring to collect water in jugs by a railroad track at night(we were ashamed of our lack of water). Having to go access that physical water back in the day makes your words all that more meaningful for me.

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About Me

My attempt. Blogging is something that has intrigued me for a long time. But I just didn't know what I wanted my blog to be. I felt it SHOULD be our family journal, one you could print out and feel like I did my mommy-duty of recording our family's life. But I think what I NEED it to be, is somewhere my thought can STICK. I spend A LOT of time talking (on the phone especially), and thinking about stuff (mostly the gospel, my kids, my marriage and who I am, or hope to be) and it doesn't really go anywhere... other than in my friends ears, I guess. So I'm gonna try and put it all (who am I kidding!) okay, SOME of it on this blog. We'll see...